Search Lights

[Xerxes77]

In reality if you point a searchlight at something on the ground 200m away it isn't just that immediate area that is illuminated, it is everything in line from the source of light to the target...and everything beyond that to the maximum range of the light.

A closer approximation can be achieved by adding the Attribute 'beam' (flag B) to the load 'Light' this will then produce much more realistic effect of potentially illuminating anything in the line of sight from source to target hex, and again there isn't a 100% chance an target will be illuminated and there isn't a 100% chance your target hex will be hit, the searchlight has some built in inaccuracy that means the final illuminated hex may not be the exact hex you targeted. This seems to work much better.

I wonder if the game is simulating those perimetral searchlights (thinking of a prison-like setup) where the beam comes from an elevated position and floods a small area with light, but not what's in between? Otherwise your suggestion seems reasonable... unless military-grade binoculars are really affected by focus and distance to the target. Infrared looks like it could definitely benefit from the beam trait.

I didn't know that there's a chance of hitting the wrong hex, did you find that via testing? I believe the manual only mentions the probability of revealing a unit in the target hex based on the device's reliability.